BONUS The Friday Show - I Happen to Like This Town
The quote that defines this movie, it basically defines life in New York.
And that is when the chief is realizing that this group of robbers may have given them the slip and that they're not anywhere close to catching them.
He says, all we've got going for us is the city.
Yeah.
Hello, Chris.
Brendan.
How's my mic doing?
I don't want Radio Mark to get mad at me.
No, you're close.
You're close enough.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
What a great week of episodes yet again.
Oh, good.
I'm glad you enjoyed everything there.
But yes, the John Oliver one was...
An all-timer.
I mean, can those two just act as if they've known each other their entire lives, and they're just busting each other's chops to no end?
Oh, my God.
Well, it's really funny because the dynamic between the two of them, it's always been like that, and it's like John...
I think he really, you know, he respects Mark, obviously.
And he's one of those guys that, like, wants Mark to take the piss out of him a little bit.
But because he knows, John knows, he always has one in the chamber to get back.
Right.
Like he knows Mark well enough.
He's, he's read him well enough.
And it, it, it makes sense.
Like John is this incredible observer of culture and social movements and politics.
Like he's got a keen eye for, you know, the development of things.
So he can very clearly see like Mark's, you know, like go back.
If you go all the way back to episode five, where we first had John Oliver on, but he was, he was on the phone.
Hmm.
He still, at that moment, like, was full... It's like the same two guys.
Like, despite all the changes and things in their lives, they still have the same dynamic that they did when they first knew each other as comics.
It's very fun.
And I would really encourage anyone, if you haven't listened to the John Oliver episode from 2012, which was episode 298...
Like, listen to that in addition to the one this week, whether you've listened to the one from this week already, or if you haven't listened to them back to back.
It's amazing listening to those two episodes together, how full a picture it is of two people who both have not changed much and have changed an enormous amount in 12 years.
It's really great.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And I got to just reiterate yet again, when you sit down with Mark, you have to know that he has a missile lock on your core being.
Like when he says to John, oh, what do you do, a Q&A?
Oh, boy.
John even, he said almost to the word what you said last week.
He said it was a precision strike.
Yeah.
Like, I believe you said it was like, you know, that he has like, you know, like a laser guided missile or something.
And that was like exactly what John Oliver was saying.
So that was funny enough.
But then that it got called back later.
It's the best.
Between that and the Bobby Lee episode, it's so refreshing to me to know that as far as we've come with this show, for the rest of the month, we're going to have all these stars coming in there, people nominated for Oscars.
This show at this core is just like a guy who is desperate to connect with people, and the way he knows to connect the best is with his peer group.
The people who are around him a lot, who have the same type of life, who have the same type of thought process, the same engagement with the world.
Like, you know, Mark was saying it in his intro, like John's brain works really fast and so does Mark's.
And so when they get into a situation where they can like, it's like, it's like watching two Jedi having a force battle with their brains.
Yeah.
Or jazz musicians, you know, for it.
For the non-nerds out there.
Yeah.
Oh, I think if you're into jazz, you're equal nerd as a Star Wars fan.
Fair.
Let's just say that.
But you know what?
Mark mentioned it in the episode.
Like, Mark needed to talk to people like this, and maybe we do too.
And it's so true, man.
I got done with that episode, and I was like, oh, thank God.
I can hop on the microphone or just see you in person and talk to you like this.
It is so important to have a relationship like that.
And yeah, I'm so thankful for people like you, for Rose and my wife, those sort of things.
Oh, yeah.
Well, I mean, the thing that's, you know, the most important about that is your brain, I think, can trick you a lot of times into thinking you are having that engagement, but it's entirely mediated by digital technology, right?
Like, you know, you're on a text thread that I'm on.
We're on a couple of different text threads with various friends, and, you know, we have, you know...
You have interaction with other people through work, online, on Slack, or whatever, and you can convince yourself.
I think the pandemic taught us this.
You can convince yourself that you're connecting with people, and you're just connecting with text.
You're connecting with visual text, and you're making your brain think, I'm talking to people, but you're not.
If there's any reason to keep doing the show...
It's to keep that kind of presence out there in the world.
I am very encouraged that you're not the only person I've ever heard say that, that when an episode is done, they think, man, I gotta go have a conversation with someone.
And that's like the A number one goal of doing this.
It's like, yeah, get people talking.
Talk to each other.
Yeah.
And man, it was great.
And also great was your bonus episode, which I have, I don't know how many people have this.
I have, and I'm sure you gave me this, but it is a double CD of the first hundred episodes of WTF.
yeah collector's edition yeah there i'm looking at it with that black case on it and everything and it has a list of all the episodes and uh like you said yep john oliver's in there with uh with dr maron and matthew uh but but yeah you had a bonus episode and so now i want to put this in first of all i have to find something to put this in because i don't know you don't have a cd player yeah i don't i don't have one but i have to i think those are actually even i think those are dvds are they uh
Yes, because I think that's what you need to hold all the data.
Like, cause, cause it's MP3 files on there.
Like, you know, in, in, you know, a hundred of them, 50 per CD.
And so you couldn't put that on an actual CD.
So it's, it's like you need a DVD drive on your computer and then pull them off.
Oh, wow.
So, so let me ask you, so is the episode that I heard on, what is it?
Wednesday that you post those, um,
Tuesday.
Tuesday.
So the episode that happened on Tuesday, is this the same episode or is this the edited version on my CD?
That's the edited on that CD.
Like I said, I think that the only people that heard the episode that I posted on the bonus are people who were listening...
At that time, spring of 2010, I think it was April, and maybe for like three or four months before we went in and removed all files that had music that was copyright protected.
In the first 30 or so episodes, we used to use an ACDC song, Down Payment Blues, as the opening theme.
So that had to go.
It was weird.
It was just a weird time.
The Wild West.
yeah but even beyond that it was more like nobody's ever going to hear this so no one will ever like i i'm i've worked in media i know what's copyright protected or not but i also remember working at like you know air america where we'd throw a song on no questions asked right you know and play it for the whole duration while the people talked or during a comedy bit or something and the idea was like well nobody's going to say anything
because this goes out into the ether.
It doesn't get saved.
No one listens to the, like, you know, if anybody sent like a cease and desist, we'd be like, fine, we won't do that again.
But it wasn't like, it's done.
Once it happened, it was ethereal.
And so I kind of went into doing WTF with the same attitude.
Only more so because I was producing it, you know, with some time and diligence.
And so I can put an episode like this together and have a field day and be like, what kind of transitions make sense?
Like, how do I get like the full sonic template of this, which is a job that lots of people have.
But then you know what they do?
They go get permissions.
And they license music and they, you know, have somebody say like, yeah, sure, you can play, you know, I've been everywhere or whatever in this in this thing and we won't charge you.
But whatever it is, you have to go do the work.
And, you know, we didn't have any we weren't producing the show with any money.
So we couldn't license anything.
And we sure as hell didn't want to have like a lawsuit on our hands.
And I believe that right around this time was when Viacom sued YouTube.
And there was a huge deal made about like what is and isn't fair use or whatever.
Yeah.
And I remember just having a conversation with Mark and being like, we can't do anything like this anymore.
Like...
Because there were some times where he would send me a song and be like, play this.
And so it just became this thing where it's like, if it's not ours or we haven't paid for it, which we then did.
We paid people to make bumpers for us.
This was before Mark started doing his guitar on the show.
It became part of the production, part of the business.
But before that, there were a lot of episodes that I really liked putting together that way.
And what wound up happening is once we had to do it without licensed music, I was fine.
There were some episodes in the archives you could go listen to.
Episode 500 is one where I really built a...
Story arc and narrative out of Mark talking to people from his past and his family, trying to see how he had grown over the years.
In episode 900, we put together a thing of Mark closing out the old garage at his old house.
And, you know, those are the things I enjoy the most.
Yeah.
In the episodes in the archives that had stuff that I had to remove, but I don't think it has affected them one way or the other.
The Judd Apatow episode, I remember, is one where we used his audio from when he was a kid and talking to Jerry Seinfeld and Gary Shandling and...
The Creation Museum, that was another episode that had a lot of production.
So those were always my favorite things to do, which is why I always loved this road trip with Eddie Pepitone one.
But to be perfectly honest, in my head, the whole time I've ever thought of this episode, I hear the version of the episode that I played in the bonus material.
Because I just remember hearing all those transitions, having it go from Eddie into the big band and the Sesame Street stuff with the little kids running around.
It all felt very organic to me, even though we shouldn't have been doing it.
Well, with that episode, how hard was it to find the thread that made it to the episode?
Because I'm thinking there's...
Just tons of material that you have to sift through.
Yeah, I think it was a light bulb moment over my head where I was like, oh, I like doing this.
Like I will sift through hours of stuff and find the place.
Right, right.
Find the path.
where we're going to take this thing.
Knowing going in, what the intention was, and then thinking while I was listening to everything, how do I play up this intention?
The intention being... Mark's overt point here is he's going to take Eddie on the road and show him a good time, show him how to get out of himself.
But the other thing I wanted to get out there was that...
This is still, and this was the ethos of the very early years of WTF, this is still Mark trying to figure his own life out, figure stuff out.
And so, you know, how do we get there with these guys?
And, you know, it's like all these moments that are in that episode were like the perfect...
spots to highlight that journey right up to the end with them like sitting having cigars but also talking about how like the draw wasn't that great right or how like but then they killed on saturday night or whatever like that was it was such a snapshot of to me what like all comedy was in that time comedy was not like if you were like in a in an arena as a comic back then you know it was jerry seinfeld and that's it chris rock
Right.
You know, and the stuff that was, you know, popular that we liked the kind of like alternative comedy in that it wasn't huge.
It had its own audience, which is what we were like trying to build on at that time.
We were not trying to be Dane Cook.
We were trying to like hit in the same audience that like Patton Oswalt was hitting in and go on that track.
Yeah, niche audience.
Yeah, right.
And speaking of Rock, I can't wait to see Mark and hear the tag that Chris Rock gave him for a joke.
I'm very impressed with Mark that he has not divulged it.
It's not even a case where I've cut it out of the show.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah, he has said, I'm not going to say the thing that Rock gave me because I don't want to...
He doesn't want people going to the show and knowing that that's the rock thing ahead of time.
Right, right.
If you pick it out in the moment, that's great.
But yeah, he doesn't want you to know that it's the rock thing.
Yeah, I can't wait.
And also my wife reminded me because she was listening to a previous episode where you asked me, oh, did he tell like the babysitting story?
And I said, no, no, he didn't.
And my wife reminded me, oh, no, he did.
And she reminded me what the, I guess the, the, the, the,
And I was like, oh, God, you both think of that as the babysitting story?
I think of it as something completely different.
But yes, yes, he did say the babysitting story when I saw him in L.A.
You psychopaths.
That's so funny.
Because, yeah, I think of it as the setup and the premise, which is about a babysitter.
Unfortunately, the story itself.
That gets washed away as soon as you hear the punchline to it, man.
Like, what are you guys talking?
You call that the babysitting story?
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
You ever see Silence of the Lambs?
That's the doctor movie.
Yeah.
That's the movie about the doctor, right?
Oh, yeah.
The Devil's Advocate.
Oh, yeah.
That's the one with the lawyers.
The lawyer movie.
That's the lawyer movie.
Also, oh, man.
And John and Mark talking through John Wick.
Just lovely.
Love to see it.
Love to hear it.
The fact that the hotel is getting high ratings for having a doctor on hand.
Just really, really amazing.
Just what a fun episode, you know?
Yeah.
I, I had a ball listening to it and I thought like it did the thing that, that, you know, Mark and a guest can do best where they're highlighting things that are, you know, central problems in people's lives or brains, you know, they're, they're not trying, we're not trying to, to change the world or solve all the world's problems.
But if you can listen to two people for 20 minutes, talk about like how they're coming to terms with like what feels like a,
precipitous slide uh towards something bad uh that's helpful it's helpful to hear people talk those things through dude it happens for me because i think about like my mortality and you know just just getting older and just hearing mark talk about that sort of stuff really kind of helps it's it's like a weird therapy session where my
My inner thoughts that I have not said out loud are coming through my headphones.
I just love having Mark in my life, in my ears.
Yeah.
Well, you're preaching to, I think, a very significant choir because if these people didn't feel the same way, I doubt they'd be paying their money to hear more of him.
True.
And to hear us talk about the show in depth like this.
You know, somebody did write in.
And ask, it's a question directed to me.
Brendan, what is your least favorite interview and why?
Alternatively, what is your favorite interview and why?
Charlie from Portland.
And he says, ask Mark.
He worked with my wife at Edible's.
Wow, that's a long time ago.
That was when Mark lived in Somerville, Massachusetts.
So I will ask Mark, Charlie.
But to address your question, the favorite thing, you know, what I just talked about, those kind of heavy production episodes, those have always been my favorite episodes to work on.
Like, that's the most fulfilling to me, to make something like that work.
Even if it's simple, like, you know, it doesn't have to be a road trip.
It's like the episode we did about two and a half years ago with Cliff Nesteroff and the TV critic David Bianculli that was just centered around this premise Mark had about, you know, cancel culture and not being able to say anything anymore.
Yeah.
you know, we kind of had two guests and some supporting evidence to really make a case that that's not true and never has been true.
And those are my favorite types of episodes to do.
But if you're talking about my favorite interview, like if you remove me as a producer of the show and just what's my favorite interview, that's easy for me to say because all I have to do is go to like my saved episode
episodes and see what is the one I've listened to the most.
And I've listened to it the most because it brings me comfort.
I enjoy it.
I listen to it all the time.
And that is episode 565 with Paul Thomas Anderson.
like as a fan of something to have that episode.
Like if I had no association with WTF, I would like, that would be my favorite episode just because of my regard for that guy.
And then the type of conversation they had that I'd never heard before.
Yeah.
and that I would want to hear without it existing.
If I could have wished that conversation into being, I would have.
So yes, that was my favorite.
Oddly, a close runner-up, when I look at the episodes I've listened to the most, Chris Gethard, episode 7-11.
And the reason for that, I think, is because he talks about so much stuff that I know in North Jersey.
Like, he tells all these stories about when he used to work for the magazine Weird New Jersey.
And there's these really funny stories.
And, you know, I've listened to that episode so much and laughed at it equally every time.
And if you're from the area, if you're from the New York, greater New York region...
I really recommend that episode.
Also, Chris is just a funny guy and a good-hearted person.
So yeah, those are my two favorites.
But least favorite, here's the deal.
If an interview was going to be my least favorite, we would scrap it.
We have scrapped them.
There are episodes that I say to Mark, this isn't good.
We did not do the job we needed to do to get this to where we can air it.
And so we would scrap it.
So there are interviews that I've done where I'm disliking them as I'm editing them.
And then my job becomes to try to make something out of them.
If I feel that they're not there, I try to get them to the point where they can be.
If I can't, we don't air it.
And we've only done that about, I would say, 10 times.
I haven't counted all of them.
Essentially, anything you've heard on this show over, you know, the course of 1500 plus episodes is something that Mark and I both deem worthy of hearing, like like whether or not you like the episode, we found something valid about it.
And I now have homework to listen to those two episodes again.
I'll be doing that on my flight.
Oh, man.
That Paul Thomas Anderson one, though.
Like, the greatest thing to do with that one is listen to the parts of it, like, while you're watching the movies.
Because it's so crazy.
Like...
I told this story once when Mark and I were doing the book tour.
And I said, there was a guy I went to college with who was a teacher.
And he was taking his students to the MoMA.
And they had a big conversation ahead of time about like what the proper behavior in a museum is and this and that.
And they get there and it was just a madhouse.
They got kicked out of the MoMA.
Like the museum organizers told him, you know, this group was not appropriate to come to the MoMA.
They weren't well behaved and like...
Yeah.
So he they get back to school and he's like, I'm so disappointed.
We talked about all how to behave in the museum.
And this is this was just not the way we're going to do this.
You're not going to have any field trips if you do this.
You know, we were told that some people were touching the paintings.
Who here was touching the paintings?
And he said, like, like eight hands went up.
Yeah.
Like there was lots of kids touching the paintings.
And one kid goes, Mr. Montroy, I touched the Van Gogh because it looked bumpy.
And he was like, what?
You touched the Van Gogh?
And then in his head, he was like, this fucker touched a Van Gogh.
I want to touch a Van Gogh.
And, and all I could think about was when Mark was talking to Paul Thomas Anderson, he would be like, so Magnolia, what was that about?
And I was like, you fucking asked him what Magnolia was about?
Like the master, what were you doing there?
And I was like, that's so fucking crazy.
That's like having the gall to touch a Van Gogh.
But then also like, I want to fucking ask him what the master was about.
Exactly.
Yeah.
That's great.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, that is one of my favorite episodes because those are among my favorite movies.
But last week we did get an assignment from one of our listeners for us to talk about our favorite New York movies.
This anonymous listener just said as topic.
Talk about your favorite or quintessential New York movies.
And Chris and I, from lifelong New York area residents, feel especially equipped as movie fans to talk about this.
I did want to kind of set some ground rules up here, Chris.
Yeah.
We already talked about some movies extensively that are absolutely top of my list New York movies.
The Paper, Dog Day Afternoon, and Michael Clayton, Mark and I have done extensive conversations about.
I'm going to leave those out, but that's not to say I wouldn't consider them among my favorites.
Also, there are hundreds of New York movies.
So many of them are so great.
Yes.
And it was a real monkey paw situation.
I'm like, oh, this is so fun.
And then it's like, oh no, there's too many.
There's too much shit.
I got too much shit on me right now.
Too much shit on me.
Yeah.
Yes.
So I said to Chris, here's what we're going to do.
Let's each have five that we want to talk about.
We don't have to categorize it anyway, or we can.
It's just however you feel about...
New York movies, pick five, and we'll talk about them each.
And I'll just say what I was going for here was I want movies that represent the essence of New York as I've lived it, right?
I'm not trying to say like...
Anyone who comes to New York should see this movie or should know this movie represents New York.
This is like the essence of New York for me.
And there's two things actually that bring me around to this that are two movies.
They're not my favorite movies.
They're not like even in the list of great New York movies, but like there's moments from them that kind of represent what I'm talking about.
And the first one is the movie, The Fisher King, which I like Terry Gilliam, but it's not my favorite Terry Gilliam.
But the idea of, at any time, New York in a kind of sinister or drab or threatening or strange way can erupt into joy.
And there's that scene in The Fisher King where he envisions the entire Grand Central Station dancing, like ballroom dancing, as they're in the midst of their commute.
And
And that is such a great representation to me of New York as I have lived it.
It's like at any time, this place is glorious.
And then that scene, when the music is done, it snaps.
And it goes right back to them walking to trains and everything, like the dancing stops.
And that's the New York representation I have in my head.
The other thing is a very brief moment from a Woody Allen movie.
And this is going to be the only time I talk about a Woody Allen movie on here.
It's not even the movie itself.
It is the song to open Manhattan murder mystery.
It's Cole Porter's, I happen to like New York.
as a helicopter shot going over the river and showing the bridges and that.
And it's like, that song itself is like this defiant thing.
Like, yeah, fuck you.
I like this town.
And I've felt that way my whole life.
That like, no, I'm going to defend this to the death.
Like, there's nothing like this.
And like, I don't care if you think there's shitty things about it.
I happen to like it.
And having that like...
in a Woody Allen movie is quite perfect because like, yeah, there's no reason I should be defending Woody Allen ever.
Right.
But there's plenty in Woody Allen movies that I like, and I'm not going to deny that.
And a lot of it is because it's very New York.
It feels like New York.
So that's just for me to set up my thinking about New York movies.
I'm interested in what your reasons were for picking the movies you picked.
Yeah.
I chose one movie for the same reason that you chose The Fisher King, because it it capsulates like the essence of being a New Yorker and the life that you live in New York.
So they don't all follow that that same sort of line of thought.
But my first movie does.
And that is Francis Ha.
Wow.
Yeah.
Because when you're in New York, and I'm sure this is true other places, but maybe not, your life is just remembering or just living through, oh yeah, where was I living at that time?
Mm-hmm.
And that's what that movie is.
There are title cards that explain where she's living at this time.
And by the way, if you haven't seen it, the movie is about this woman, Frances, who is Greta Gerwig, who's just been on your show, and her journey to make it in New York City.
And by make it, I mean just make rent every month.
So it follows her through all the different apartments she lives in.
And it's...
a quintessential New York story.
It's also about friendships and relationships and how you can sort of get married to your friends and then you just kind of one day you don't have them anymore and you're sort of divorced and you're alone and you're just trying to make ends meet.
You're living with people that you wouldn't normally live with because that's what you do in New York.
I know I've done that
I lived in Brooklyn with a guy who I barely knew, but we made it work.
I know you lived in apartments with your buddy Justin, and it captures what New York was for me in my 20s, which was it was fun.
It was fun.
I was living check to check.
And it was it was it's a perfect New York movie.
So, yeah.
And, you know, there's very few people.
I don't care what station of life you're at now or where you've been.
There's very few people who live here who haven't had to, you know, other than people with like generational wealth.
There are very few people who've lived here who haven't had to think about that for either a short period of time or an extended period of time or forever.
The balance between how hard it is to make ends meet here versus the rewards of living here.
And yeah, if that's what you are feeling as a representation of New York, that's a good movie for it.
And I think...
Noah Baumbach, who made the movie, is a guy who would agree 100% that that push and pull has been apparent his whole life.
I think you can tell from the other movie he made about New York, The Squid and the Whale.
That's right.
Oh, man.
That movie hits me so hard.
That was going to be on my list.
I have a list of 100 movies.
I'm just like, oh, yeah, Squid and the Whale.
It has to be on there, right?
Yeah.
Francis Ha made it.
Squid and the Whale, not so much.
Well, I, you know, if you're talking about that as like a New York street level experience, I have a movie that kind of corresponds with that as well.
And it's something I saw when it came out.
It was, you know, not in the theater, but I saw it on VHS, like right when it was on VHS, I'd heard a lot about it.
And so I wanted to see it.
And I guess I was maybe 10 at the time, 11, probably, you know, you would think a more adult movie than I should be watching at that time.
But I think...
It was appropriate for a New York kid who lived in the same type of environment that this movie took place in to kind of see it from a perspective that wasn't mine.
And I've watched the movie dozens, dozens of times since then.
And it's as good or better every time.
And that is do the right thing.
Yeah, that was that was on my list as well, my friend.
Well, I mean, like, it just, to me, it was the age I was at, the era that it represented.
Like, I remember as a kid watching it and feeling like, thank God someone made this.
Yeah.
Because, like, I have... I was under the impression that the city was like this for others.
I had no experience of it being articulated this way.
And so it was a real, like...
It was not just a moment where I could feel empathy.
It was a moment where I felt unity.
Like, oh yeah, I thought this was happening.
You're not imagining it.
This is actually happening.
Right.
And so the other great thing is that this is a director who has made so many good New York movies.
So many.
25th Hour, Malcolm X, Inside Man.
But all of those are different movies.
like in their representation of new york new york as a setting as opposed to a character and with do the right thing the movie might as well say starring new york exactly that that's the overarching theme my friend yes these movies that i'm picking and you're picking i believe it's co-star new york city that's that's right yeah
and do the right thing, you can't bring up New York movies without bringing up Spike Lee and especially this movie because this movie hit at such an amazing time for everything.
Black people seeing their stories, their music, their people on the big screen.
I mean, I'd say it's probably one of the most important movies ever or even just for the 90s.
It is, wow, it is just...
Amazing.
We actually watched it last night.
Are you serious?
Yeah.
I powered it up on Peacock because I was like, I got to watch this again.
Aaron never watched it before.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
The other thing is like the co-star of that movie is The Sun.
And can I tell you, living here all my life, the summer in New York City is the fucking worst season.
Yeah.
I've been in summers in other places where you're like, well, this sucks too, but there's no character to this.
Like the great thing that Do the Right Thing shows is like how that oppressive summer turns into like...
this kind of unique survival, uh, camp where everyone has their own methods of getting through it.
You've got like the guys sitting on the corner under the umbrellas and you've got the fire hydrants and the using the ice cubes from the, from the fridge, like all of that stuff.
I've done all of that shit.
Like in my life, it's all happened.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and I've also seen it cook people's brains to a point that they just snap and they do things that they wouldn't normally do, but they're, they're, they're, what is it?
They're, they just, they have a little, just a little fucking thread and, and they just need-
yeah just snaps so so in a particular way that they will do something that they would never normally do i have been there and yeah this this movie capsulates it so perfectly well i think what mark always says is that you walk around in a you know hot time in new york in the summer and everyone looks like they're on on drugs like it's like it's just like this like sweaty haze that everyone's going through
Yeah.
And also the music, Public Enemy, my man, Chuck D. Yes.
It's great hearing that song play throughout.
I mean, just the movie is pitch perfect.
And I can't believe it came out just like two or three months before like Rodney King happened.
And like...
Yeah.
But see, that's the funny thing, because I do remember it felt, I think, to a lot of people like a premonition or something.
But to me, it felt explanatory for all these things that I was growing up not fully understanding.
Why are they riding in Crown Heights?
Right.
Right.
What's this shit that went on in Bensonhurst?
I didn't get these things from a standpoint of anything other than weird tragedies that seemed to be being driven by something that didn't make sense to me.
Meaning, why were people hating each other like this?
And this movie was such a great...
I don't think the intention was to explain racism.
But as a kid- But to show it, honestly.
Yes, I got an idea of the thing that I was suspecting.
I got a good visual depiction of it, and that was very helpful.
Yeah.
And honestly, it's just like with Rodney King, it was just-
people were able to show the masses, other people who are not just black, what is actually happening.
And it happened with Rounding King and it happened with Do the Right Thing.
And it is a cold, hard truth that that is happening in the world.
And now more people see it and they see that it's an injustice and it is wrong.
And yeah, I mean, the movie is...
It is the quintessential New York movie.
So what's the next one on your list?
All right.
Listen, when you talk about New York, there's a couple of thoughts that permeate.
But it's this movie that is, again, a quintessential movie.
And again, it is all about a certain time in your life when you're figuring things out.
And that movie is When Harry Met Sally.
This is autumn in New York.
It captures just the beauty of New York.
Again, New York being a co-star in this movie.
And there are various iconic locations throughout the movie.
There's Central Park with the leaves on the ground.
There's the American History Museum.
Of course, there's Cat's Deli.
But the humor is also just very New York.
It is just...
Billy Crystal is a tour de force in this movie.
And so is, what's his best friend's name?
Bruno Kirby.
Yeah, Bruno Kirby.
I mean, these guys are quintessential New Yorkers.
Well, also, I think you've got a very New York mentality...
at the typewriter in Nora Ephron, right?
Like that's a, the way the script is put together, which is funny because I'm thinking about it.
It's like, well, you know, it's like Rob Reiner.
He's a pretty LA guy.
Carrie Fisher, showbiz LA.
But like, I think it's that Nora Ephron, like Upper West Side, you know, sitting in coffee shops, watching people walk around, walk by as she gets her thoughts and ideas and puts them to paper.
I definitely think that has a lot to do with it.
Yeah.
And just like getting into arguments over moving in with someone, just the brash attitude.
It's, it's all so New York.
So, so yeah, that is for me, quintessential New York movie.
Well, I'll connect my next pick back to Spike Lee in that I have another director here who is, you just can't talk about New York without this guy.
And yeah,
The reason I pick this specific movie over all his other New York movies is because this is the way I think of the dark underside of New York.
That it's an epic underside.
That it's sprawling and dense.
It's basically, it's like they live, but instead of aliens, it's like if you put sunglasses on in New York...
That at any time you'd see like whatever you're looking at has just the most sinister, crazy shit underneath it.
But when you take the glasses off, it's like, we're just walking down the street here.
It's totally fine.
And...
He obviously has this in all of his movies, but there's no movie he made that has this basically in every restaurant, every street corner.
It's not immediate peril.
It's just a dark story right there on the surface.
And that is Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas.
Yes.
Yeah.
And I mean, it's like, obviously you can say Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, King of Comedy, After Hours, Wolf of Wall Street, The Irishman.
These are all great, great New York movies in the way we're even talking about them right now.
But Goodfellas, aside from being one of my favorite movies of all time, is the one where like I walk all the time past that street corner where Jimmy tells Karen to go in and get the dresses.
Right down there.
And it's like, yes, it's like totally believable to me that that would have happened right there.
Yeah.
Yep.
Absolutely.
So listen, you're talking to a guy when his good friend was getting married.
We went on a Goodfellas filming location run for his bachelor party.
Oh, that's great.
We went to the alley where the kids find the bloody couple in the pink Cadillac.
We took a photo right there.
We went to the bar where Jimmy hangs out.
I think it's called like Nears Tavern in Woodhaven.
It was a great bachelor party.
By the way, that bachelor party had none other than Tony Reale from ESPN's Around the Horn.
Oh, right, right, right.
He's in your fantasy baseball league.
Actually, not anymore.
He left.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, but yeah, my thoughts and prayers.
But yeah, it's funny how many kind of very famous people that I'm around.
It's just kind of strange that way.
But anyway, this movie was a staple in my house, more than The Godfather.
Oh, yeah, same.
In my opinion, this movie is better than The Godfather.
I agree.
Like, this is... It's different but better, yes.
Yeah.
But it's a movie that just hung around my house because we did have mafia guys in my neighborhood, you know?
Yeah.
And, like, in Goodfellas, they filmed scenes close to my house, like, right near Crazy Eddie in the mall, you know?
And I, too, was asked to stir the sauce.
Like, it was just... It was...
Like a movie that was ingrained in me.
Like I used to try to slice garlic with a razor blade so it dissolves in the sauce.
It does not, by the way.
But yeah, this movie is just like the movie that has followed me throughout my life.
I just bought it on DVD recently.
Again.
Yeah, well, you must be up to like three or four versions.
Yeah, probably.
I'm a sucker.
Yeah, well, I agree with everything you're saying.
And even when I didn't have the personal experiences of it, it always felt like it was possible just in the apartment next door.
You know, like, everything in this feels like what New York felt like, you know.
And, you know, obviously, I grew up in Queens, so that has something to do with it, too.
A lot of the scenes in this movie take place in Queens.
The Jackson Hole Diner, I used to go to that.
Like, that's...
Yeah, tons of locations in the movie that feel very relevant to me.
So I can't make a list without Scorsese movies, but I can't pick a Scorsese movie without Goodfellas.
Yeah, absolutely.
Great pick.
All right.
My next movie, I have to talk about the difference between New York City movies pre 9-11 and post 9-11 because it all changed that day.
Like New York City was an animal.
Like it was the scary city.
You know, like people would be scared to come here.
Now, I've grown up here.
I grew up in Staten Island.
Every week, I'd go to my grandparents' place for Sunday dinner in Brooklyn.
The F train would be running out the window on the bridge.
I would ride the bus with my dad into the city on mornings when I didn't have school.
I was in a Bronx tale.
I'd stare up at the Twin Towers and people watch from the bus window behind my dad's seat.
The Twin Towers were a part of my life.
Like,
It was, it was like the, just an ornament that was just there.
You know, I would take the ferry into the city with my friends and you used to be able to take your car onto the boat.
And my friends and I, my friends and I would throw pieces of soft pretzel, like it was a baseball.
And we, you know, as if we were throwing at the first base, the wind would whip it back into our faces and we would try to catch it in our mouths.
Like it was like the thing we would do because the ferry was like 50 cents.
It was, it was the best.
Yeah.
But yeah, I spent hours staring at the Twin Towers from the ferry.
But also when I was a kid, I would go jogging and there was like this spot on my morning jog where I would catch the sun right between the two towers, like from Staten Island.
And it was awesome.
Like it was just like, yeah.
And then just one day, you know, just gone, you know?
And to this day, it really does feel like, when I look at the view, it looks like we just got our two front teeth punched out.
Yeah, and it doesn't look like the same skyline.
Even though that skyline only was developed in the 70s, it doesn't feel the same.
Yeah.
But after 9-11, New Yorkers were outwardly kind to each other.
And it was nice.
It's still nice.
But we lost that mystique.
We lost that edge.
Like that year, the Yankees made it to the World Series and Met fans were rooting for the Yankees.
And that's when I knew.
Not you, though.
No, no, not me.
Fuck that.
But that's when I knew that the city was not back to normal yet.
And maybe would never be back to normal.
Yeah, the trauma was overwhelming the grit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so ever since then, things have been different in movies and New York.
No one's blowing up buildings until very recently in New York.
But the movie that reminds me of the last New York movie before 9-11...
is the royal tenenbaums dude it's literally the next one i got on my list here no kidding now the funny thing is that came out after 9-11 but right after made made before it and you know what's funny to me is that the thing i wrote down right here on my list next to the royal tenenbaums was the ideal fantasy of new york
Like that's like, so, so say what you're going to say though, about like your thoughts on this as the, for the last nine 11, the last pre nine 11 movie.
Well, it's, it's a movie that when you watch it, you're like, are they in New York?
Cause there's no, there's no icon, you know, icons.
There's no Statue of Liberty.
There's no, there's streets that don't exist.
There's taxis that are not real.
And you know what though?
That's New York.
Like, yeah, you live in New York.
Right, right.
You live in New York, but also those landmarks, they don't really, you don't look at them ever.
You're just like, oh yeah, like the Washington Square, you know, monument or, you know, thing.
You don't look at it.
You're just walking.
And that's what this movie feels like.
It feels like you're just living these people's lives and it is just a perfect encapsulation of it.
Of what it is to live in New York.
I mean, obviously in a very grand and, you know, way that I'm not used to, but it is very New York for me.
Well, here's the thing.
That idea of having a fantasy New York, even as a New Yorker, is...
It's so New York.
It's in our souls.
Yes, exactly.
It's like, because our whole lives, right?
We've been in and around this place.
We try to have an understanding of it.
You try to be, everyone wants, who's from New York wants to be the most New York, right?
Like, this doesn't bother me, whatever.
But everyone has so many things that they still don't have their hands around about this place.
And a big way I remember, you know, kind of growing up and even into my adult life, it's like you understand New York through its depictions in fiction, in books, in The New Yorker, even in like children's stuff when you're a kid, Lyle Lyle Crocodile or things like that.
There's this fantasy of New York that you're like,
Yeah, I guess there's stuff here I just can't explain.
And what Wes Anderson does in that movie is he's like, I'm going to make the whole city that.
You know, it's interesting.
The closest thing I saw to that recently was Wonka.
That it's like, it doesn't exist in a time or place.
Like they're, they're using a money that doesn't exist.
They never say where it is.
There's people who are British, but then like, you know, Keegan, Michael Key shows up and he sounds like he's from Brooklyn.
Right.
There's this idea that like, you're in this like fantasy Euro zone.
Right.
And like, I feel New York has that in spades and Royal Tenenbaums is absolutely the, the one that, that draws that out the best.
yeah um all right well i have one next on my list that i'm thinking you probably do too what's that so i'll go to that one next since we just shared another one but this one to me is the flip side of goodfellas that it's when the underside of new york is hilarious okay and when new york is an entity that
in and of itself like you know you talked about these movies are all co-starring new york well this is new york as the villain or if you know it's not a it's not it's a comedy and so there's no actual bad guy but if there is an antagonist the antagonist is new york okay
And that movie is quick change.
Yeah, buddy.
That is, I mean, how New York is that movie?
Especially that exact time of New York.
So that was, that was the time in New York that I was moving out of New York for my high school years.
We moved to upstate New York when I was, I guess, 11 or 12.
And I stayed there through high school before coming back to the city for college.
And I,
I felt exactly the way the people in that movie did.
Like, you know, like, I got plenty ahead of me in my life, but only if I can get out of New York.
Right.
Like, I just got to escape because there's these other things.
And anyone who lives here has felt that way.
Even if he didn't live in the, you know, the Dinkins administration, you felt this way.
But this movie does it with...
You know, hilarious scenes one after another.
There's just so many that I still think about every day walking around or whatever I'm doing here.
They're like, oh, it's bad luck even seeing that.
Can I tell you, this is my apocalypse now.
Like, this is like...
I love this movie.
Like this is a movie with these very short vignettes and they're all of a piece.
And I love this movie.
You can all watch it on Canopy.
If you have a library card, you can rent it from Canopy.
And if you don't know what this movie is, it's a story that follows a group of bank robbers that pull off a robbery.
But when their escape plan falls apart, they have to make one up as they go along and try to get out.
of new york and yeah it's it's also it's funny it's i think why you like movies like beau is afraid and you know it's like he's like journeys people putting these people on these you know these these trials of of the soul to to get to their accomplished uh task and uh that's absolutely what's going on in this movie
randy quaid is is on another level on this in this movie randy quaid gina davis and bill murray and they're they're a great trio uh jason robards is the cop pursuing them who fits in fits like a glove yeah uh yeah this was also for me growing up with just imminently quotable up your butt with a coconut i mean there's just so many things from this movie yeah
There's a scene where they're trying to get to the BQE and there's a construction crew and they took down the signs and Bill Murray's like, sir, just that sign, where was it hanging up?
And the sign, it has an arrow for the BQE and the arrow can spin.
So he just spins it around like as if it's like in a Twister game.
It is...
quite honestly hilarious there's another scene when randy quaid is in a and uh and uh bill murray and gina davis are in a taxi with the guy from monk what's his name tony shalhoub very young tony shalhoub and tony shalhoub and randy quaid it is it is one of my favorite scenes i buckled when i watched it recently it is it is such a fun and you know what
I've been in that situation where the cabbie, what are you saying?
Just take me here.
I can write it down.
Please just take me to the airport or something.
The quote that defines this movie, it basically defines life in New York.
And that is when the chief is realizing that this group of robbers may have given them the slip and that they're not anywhere close to catching them.
He says, all we've got going for us is the city.
Our only hope is they're mired down in the same shit that you and I have to wade through every day.
Yes.
And it almost gets them.
Oh man, it is, it is, it is a great New York movie and it is of a time, but it's also like, it's a great thing to remember that this city and you know what?
It's, it's not that far off.
The city can just get you down.
One day the F train just stops working.
And what, what, where am I?
I have to go, you know?
So yeah, that is, that is a great New York movie.
All right.
I think we've each got one left.
What's what's your last one?
All right.
This movie, you can't.
I mean, it's like it's like that game or like first thing that comes to your mind, like New York movies.
OK.
And now this movie I've seen probably the most in my life.
OK.
I've seen it in theaters.
I've seen it on TV.
I've seen it in parks in Brooklyn, you know, next to the Brooklyn Bridge and Bryant Park.
I know this movie.
I love this movie.
Because New York, again, is the co-star, okay?
And that movie is another Bill Murray movie, and it is Ghostbusters.
It's my number one on the list as well.
Listen, you can't talk about New York without Ghostbusters.
It almost, I dare to say Ghostbusters sort of made the identity of New York.
at least as far as our our age group understands it yes for sure because i will say that like like my my in-laws for instance like they still think new york to this day is like panic at needle park oh funny their minds are so geared to like the 1970s new york movies right but i totally agree that from like the 1984 on the definition of new york literally with the the ghostbusters firehouse still intact
down in Tribeca, like that is the identity of New York.
Yeah.
And it is like, it is what I, it's now what I think of New York.
Like I walked by the New York Public Library and I'm like, oh yeah, they're the line.
Like Columbia University.
It's also just the vibe.
There's the annoying neighbors who are asking you to come over to a party.
Like they're horrible politicians.
Like Bill Murray's character is just a quintessential New Yorker yet again, like sarcastic to a fault.
Like this is the New York I grew up in.
this is exactly what i was saying at the beginning the essence of new york as i've lived it yeah and it's like yeah there were no ghosts but there were things like that but there's plenty of things that happened in new york or it might as well be a ghost like or like or like a building like with a with a giant demon on top like you're like oh fuck this today jesus
But there are ghosts, right?
All those fucking buildings have ghosts in them.
Well, true.
Yes.
In the, in the sense you're talking about, I mean, there's no like green guy popping out with the hot dogs in his mouth.
Right, right.
Yeah.
Ghostbusters is the movie that if I, if I had to show my nephews and nieces like, okay, they want to know what, what is a New York movie?
Ghostbusters is the first place I would go.
So, okay.
I got something to say here.
I'm going to wind this up a little bit.
But I get very kind of irritated about the modern conversation around Ghostbusters, right?
Like the sequels?
Yeah.
Or just this movie?
Well, yeah, like it started with that reboot, which was a very sexist kind of, and, you know, basically presaged the Trump years of the attitudes against the female Ghostbusters movie.
Oh, right.
Which was a shame because I thought the movie was not good and should have been able to stand on the merits of not being good, as opposed to you have to defend it because they were, you know, people were taking issue with it just because there were women in it.
But aside from that,
I felt that the movie and the complaints around it were like, oh, you're ruining my childhood, right?
The childhood of Ghostbusters.
And now I'm watching, they made that sequel, Afterlife, right?
Now they have another one coming out.
And it's like, these movies are all very, very interested in ghosts.
do you know what the least important part of ghostbusters was the ghosts yes in fact the movie is best thought of as essentially a sequel or a part in the series of slobs versus snobs comedies that bill murray was making at the time yes it is meatballs it is caddyshack it is stripes and
These are blue collar dudes who are doing jobs that they probably shouldn't be in, where they have to bump up against authority figures.
And it just gives an excuse for Bill Murray to be snide and funny.
That's the magic of it.
Absolute magic of it.
Now, they made a cartoon show.
that was designed to sell toys, and kids could watch it every day after school, and it had a monster of the day theme, so you could easily refill it, and it was very disposable.
I got no problem with that cartoon.
I watched it when I was a kid, and I had the toys when I was a kid, but I think a lot of the modern conversation around Ghostbusters is from kids who liked those toys, grew up with those toys in their mind, that cartoon in their mind, and they had their own monster of the day adventures.
Because kids are very good at that.
Kids have imaginations where you can make, you know, this thing's attacking the city.
You know what kids are not good at?
Creating National Lampoon-style dialogue and funny jokes.
And I think, you know, I watch something like Stranger Things.
And I think those guys have Ghostbusters in their soul, right?
To make Stranger Things.
But they have that cartoon version of Ghostbusters.
They are thinking monster of the day.
They are thinking, you know, oh, how do you fight this evil force where you live or whatever?
For me and for you...
ghostbusters might as well be an offshoot of snl right right it's it's just and snl by the way also quintessentially new york oh absolutely so that's what to me sets ghostbusters apart from everything else the new yorkness of it right the the unflappability of the people in the movie in the face of all this crazy shit that's happening like janine are you kidding me you know how many janines you've met in your life
No, Dr. Venkman.
Like that attitude.
Or when like the place is exploding, like the ghosts are flying out of the containment unit and the key master walks by and he says, this is a sign.
And she goes, yeah, it's a sign.
All right.
We're going out of business.
Perfect.
Or how about the guy at the elevator at the hotel?
Yeah.
What are you supposed to be?
Some kind of cosmonaut?
Like...
if that joke is not in the movie you lose so much yes you lose so much of the feel the guy who's a uh the handsome cab operator and and uh and rick moranis is talking to the horse and then he's like hey hey i pay i do the the fares here you don't talk to him you talk to me and rick moranis like growls at the guy the dog inside him and he runs away and they stay on the guy for five seconds so he can say
What an asshole.
I've been that guy.
Yeah.
For sure.
That is... How about Ernie Hudson showing up in this movie who's supposed to be Eddie Murphy, right?
Oh, man.
So there's supposed to be, again...
snl style movie you're supposed to have this huge comedic actor in it he doesn't do it he goes off and makes beverly hills cop so instead you put a guy in it who nobody knows right he's an unknown actor but he's playing this role and what is his what is the main definition of winston in that movie he is just a guy trying to do his job yes to the point where when the marshmallow man is attacking the building he says this job definitely isn't worth 11 5 a year
I'll believe in anything you want.
Oh, man.
Yes.
That's another thing.
The movie, it doesn't shy away from the racial dynamics of the city at the time.
Winston telling the mayor, I've seen shit that would turn you white.
Everything about this movie is New York.
Absolutely.
And the crazy thing is, I couldn't get over this.
I noticed this last night.
When I looked at this list of movies I made, I said the five New York movies I wanted to talk about were Do the Right Thing, Goodfellas, Quick Change, Royal Tenenbaums, and Ghostbusters.
Three of those have Bill Murray in it.
Yeah.
A guy from Chicago.
Yeah.
Again, it goes back to SNL and that kind of that ground level type of improv comedy that really started to take root in the 70s here and help define the tone of the city as we were growing up.
I think that's why Bill Murray shows up three times here.
And he could have shown up a fourth time if I had expanded this list because Scrooged to me is right there as a New York movie.
For sure.
A very New York movie.
Yes.
Yes.
So, yes, I'm very happy that you and I arrived at the same place here on this and that we could have named, you know, dozens, dozens more movies.
In fact, why don't you go ahead, Chris?
Do you have other movies that you just kind of want to shout out as great New York movies?
The Taking of Pelham 123, The French Connection, Serpico, one of my all-time favorite movies, The Warriors, Escape from New York, Superman, Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse, Rosemary's Baby, Man on Wire is a good documentary.
I mean, yeah, those movies are just to name a few.
Well, yeah, the great thing about so many of those that you just mentioned is I do think there's a separate category that I love, but they don't fall to me under the umbrella of essentially my New York.
And that's those 70s New York movies, French Connection, taking a Pelham.
Also, Network absolutely falls into that category.
That's right.
But then, you know, there's something we mentioned before, The Squid and the Whale.
That's a movie that I really love, much like Coming to America.
Yes.
Where they are my neighborhoods.
Like that McDowell's restaurant in Coming to America, that's where I grew up.
That street.
That was a McDonald's.
And near Jamaica, Queens.
And that we knew exactly, we'd drive by, we'd go, oh, there's McDowell's.
So that's that neighborhood with the squid and the whale is my current neighborhood, right outside of Park Slope.
The filet of the neighborhood, yeah.
The filet of the neighborhood.
Absolutely.
So those are other reasons to have certain affinity for New York movies.
Hey, another one that I know you and I both love, Rear Window.
Yes.
Oh, my God, yes.
Yeah, for sure.
Great New York movie.
I also want to put an asterisk.
next to a movie that I truly, truly love, have seen it many, many times, and that is Glengarry Glen Ross because it was shot in New York.
There's an L train.
It's over by the Williamsburg Bridge or something.
It's very visually in New York, but the problem is that is a Chicago movie.
play like it is set in chicago so it's like it has this chicago dna in it but the movie itself feels very new york so like i i definitely have that on my in in my brain as like a movie that i love about new york even though it's not yeah well that's been a lot from us so if you have other ones that we haven't mentioned or just want to add to the conversation please send it in and we will we will
Add your New York movies, just like we've been adding your buddy movies.
In fact, we got a message from Julian here.
Julian had some Oscar stuff that he sent in that we'll hold off on when we do our pre-Oscar show.
But he said, I thought of another great buddy movie, one with lots of humor, though not a traditional comedy, Midnight Cowboy.
oh yeah that is one of the new york yeah i'm walking here yeah you know that that book we mentioned last week by jason bailey uh fun city cinema like he tells the story of making uh midnight cowboy here and it basically served as the template for making all future new york movies because you know there was this run and gun approach they were taking shots where they could get them
They were hiding cameramen in boxes so that they could shoot them in the street with traffic and everything.
And they wouldn't have to use a permit.
And it was like the stuff that Midnight Cowboy did caused New York as a city to make adjustments to say, hey, we should encourage more shooting of films here.
So aside from being a great buddy comedy, also a great buddy movie, it's a great New York movie.
And, you know, in many ways, all the New York movies after it owe a debt of gratitude to it.
Although I will say every New York movie after 1984 owes a debt of gratitude to Ghostbusters.
And I'm very proud of the both of us for acknowledging that, Chris.
We did not talk about our lists ahead of time.
We have not talked about New York movies ahead of time.
I did not know what you were going to say, but I'm very happy that we both landed in the same place.
And again, why don't you out there listening, send in your thoughts, or if you're from somewhere else and you think there's movies that represent where you're from, please let us know that because I'm not from anywhere else and neither is Chris.
We wouldn't really know what, you know, makes a good LA movie.
So like we, I have my great LA movies in my mind, but I don't know it to the core that someone from out there knows.
Yeah.
That's going to do it for us this week.
But next week, we will get started on our monthly Tarantino check-in.
And we will start at the start with his first movie, Reservoir Dogs.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, we're going to do this every month.
One of Quentin Tarantino's movies leading up to October, which will be the 30th anniversary of Pulp Fiction.
Next week, it is Reservoir Dogs.
You going to watch it like this week, Chris?
When do you think you're going to get it in?
absolutely yeah yeah this week all right okay great uh i will do the same anyone out there wants to watch it go for it and we will uh we will find out your thoughts on tipping uh when we start the show next week until then i'm brendan that's chris peace